Human ecology
Human ecology is the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. Development of human ecology Ecology as a discipline was technically born when Ernst Haeckel used the word "oekologie" in 1866 to describe the study of an organism’s relationship to its environment.Haeckel, E. 1866. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Berlin: G.Reimer. Ecology was revolutionary at this time because it encouraged interdisciplinarity within the sciences—it created a bridge between the physical sciences and the biological sciences in order to study systems of both biotic and abiotic factors. Human ecology is composed of concepts from ecology like interconnectivity, community behavior, and spatial organization. From the beginning, human ecology was present in geography and sociology,Gross, M. 2004. "Human Geography and Ecological Sociology: The Unfolding of a Human Ecology, 1890 to 1930 – and Beyond," Social Science History 28(4): 575-605. but also in biological ecology and zoology. However, it was the social scientists who applied ecological ideas to humans in a rigorous way.Moore 1920 Throughout the 20th century, few biological ecologists really tackled human ecology, but they tended to focus on humans’ impact on the biotic world----which is only half of the picture.Young, Gerald L. 1974. Human Ecology as an Interdisciplinary Concept. Paul Sears is the perfect example of this, an ecologist who realized the disastrous effects that humans were having on the environment and called for human ecology to act as a means to solve them.Sears, P. 1954. Human Ecology: A problem in Synthesis. In Science, New Series 120 (3128) pp.959-963. However, some social scientists expanded human ecology to include also the physical environment's impact on people.Gross, M. 2004. "Human Geography and Ecological Sociology: The Unfolding of a Human Ecology, 1890 to 1930 – and Beyond," Social Science History 28(4): 575-605. It is interesting to note that although social scientist human ecologists got their ideas from biological ecologists, these early biological ecologists had originally adapted social concepts to the natural world. These concepts that transcended disciplines and passed from the social to the biological and back to the social are the basis for human ecology. The academic foundations of a human ecology can be attributed to the sociology department at the University of Chicago and to the work of Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess’ 1921 book Introduction to the Science of Sociology.Young, G.L. 1974. Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry. Advances in Ecological Research. 8, 1-105. Park and Burgess used ecological concepts like those from Frederick Clements and Charles Darwin to describe human systems, specifically focusing on cities. Their student, Roderick McKenzie also played an important role in solidifying human ecology as a sub-discipline within the Chicago school. They emphasized that the difference between human ecology and the ecology of other organisms is that human societies are organized on not only the biotic level but the cultural level as well. Human ecology as human-environment interactions is an ancient idea in geography. In the modern era, the term appears as early as 1908 in the discipline (Titles and Abstracts of Papers Presented to the Association from 1904 to 1910, Inclusive). Harlan Barrows addresses the topic in his presidential speech to the Association of American Geographers in 1923. Barrows’ speech is an attempt to redefine geography as the science of human ecology, emphasizing its study of humans’ relationships with the land instead of just a regional study of the physical land.Barrows, H. H. 1923. Geography as Human Ecology. Association of American Geographers Annual. 13:1-14. In the early 1950s anthropologists, led by Julian H. Steward, began to further develop this human ecological study of culture, asserting that it is the intermediary between humans and their environments and what makes humans unique. Anthropologists had long been interested in humans’ direct relationships with their environments so it was easy for them to incorporate human ecology into their discipline. Psychological ecology was also developing at the same time—a field that expanded a person’s “environment” to include their mental representation of it and focused on studying people’s behavior under field conditions instead of in a controlled laboratory setting. Kurt Lewin emphasized that the “ecology” of this mental world was the study of relations within consciousness, dramatically shifting the term but further expanding the realm of human ecology. Ecological ideas also showed up in economics, with Kenneth E. Boulding being the strongest proponent for integrating the two disciplines that share semantic origins (“eco” meaning house). Boulding drew parallels between ecology and economics, most generally in that they are both studies of individuals as members of a system, and indicated that the “household of man” and the “household of nature” could somehow be integrated to create a perspective of greater value.Boulding, K.E. 1950. An Ecological Introduction. In A Reconstruction of Economics, Wiley, New York. pp. 3-17.Boulding, K.E. 1966. Economics and Ecology. In Nature Environments of North America, F.F. Darling and J.P. Milton, eds, Doubleday New York. pp.225-231. In the late 1960s, ecological concepts started to become integrated into the applied fields, namely architecture, landscape architecture, and planning. Ian McHarg called for a future when all planning would be “human ecological planning” by default, always bound up in humans’ relationships with their environments. He emphasized local, place-based planning that takes into consideration all the “layers” of information from geology to botany to zoology to cultural history.McHarg, I. 1981. Ecological Planning at Pennsylvania. In Landscape Planning 8(2):109-120 In these early years, human ecology was still deeply enmeshed in its respective disciplines: geography, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics. Through the 1970s and 80s scholars like Gerald L. Young and Britta Jungen began to call for a greater integration between all of the scattered disciplines that had each established some kind of ecological thinking.Young, G.L. 1974. Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry. Advances in Ecological Research. 8, 1-105. It was clear that throughout the 20th century human ecology was solidly multidisciplinary, in that it included people from a vast variety of disciplines, but it had not yet become interdisciplinary. During the 1970s and 80s this slowly began to change as more interdisciplinary programs, institutions, and organizations became founded focusing on human ecology. Pioneers and proponents Many people have contributed to the study of human ecology. The following are some of the most influential scholars: *Harlan H. Barrows was a geographer who considered human ecology to be the unique field of geography. Barrows regarded human ecology as the relation between geography and the environment and divides it into three areas: economic geography (what people need and want), political geography (relating to organizations), and social geography (connections between people).Barrows, H.H. 1923. Geography as Human Ecology. Association of American Geographers Annual. 13:1-14. *Robert Ezra Park was an urban sociologist who considered human ecology as the study of the relationship between biotic balance and social equilibrium. He emphasized the cultural structure of human society which he separated into groups: ecological, economic, political, and moral.Park 1936 *Kurt Lewin, a psychologist, worked for the US government during World War II to change people's attitudes toward rationing. In his study, he used "the environment" to describe the mental environment, expanding human ecology into the world of the mind. *Kenneth E. Boulding, an economist, saw a strong correlation between economics and ecology based around five basic similarities between the two: 1) Both study individuals as members of a species (for ecology, populations of individuals, and for economics, populations of commodities). 2) Both have a concept of equilibrium (for ecology, an equilibrium of populations, and for economics, an equilibrium of price systems). 3) Both involve a system exchange among their various individuals and species that is important in determining equilibrium. 4) Both imply some concept of development. 5) Both are subject to their equilibriums distorted by policy (for ecology, agriculture, and for economics, government).Boulding, K.E. 1950. An Ecological Introduction. In A Reconstruction of Economics, Wiley, New York. pp. 3-17. *As an anthropologist, Julian Steward emphasized the role that culture has in explaining the nature of human societies. He considered human society to be dictated by much more than the immediate physical environment and biotic assemblage. The nature of local group is determined by both local adaptations and larger institutions.Steward 1955 *Roderick D. McKenzie was a sociologist associated with the University of Chicago. McKenzie believed human ecology to be concerned with the process of spatial grouping of interacting human beings or of interrelated human institutions.McKenzie, R.D. 1926. The Scope of Human Ecology. 20th Annual Meeting, 1925, Paper and Proceedings, vol. 20, American Sociological Society, Washington D.C., pp. 141-154. *Gerald L. Young was an influential player in the development of Human Ecology. He was the fourth president of Society for Human Ecology (SHE) and is considered one of SHE’s founders. Young is a recognized leader in pulling together the field of human ecology for his scholarly publications in human ecology, including “Origins of Human Ecology” and “The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment." *Ian McHarg was a landscape architect and writer on regional planning using natural systems. He was the founder of the department of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. His 1969 book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. *Rusong Wang, an urban systems ecologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, defines human ecology, in Chinese terms as the science of the living state or dynamics of the human being, driven by objective and subjective factors. It involves understanding, planning, and management. According to Wang, Chinese human ecologists are searching for a feasible future for their nation that includes high efficiency, sustainable development, and harmonious relationships between social, economic, and natural systems. *Dieter Steiner, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, had a vision of how to combat the global environmental crises by integrating the sciences with outside disciplines, understanding our evolutionary past, and developing personal integration and relatedness to the world outside the self.Steiner, D. and M. Nauser (eds.). 1993. Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary Views of the World. London and New York: Routledge. Human Ecology Forum 108 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2008 He developed many conceptual frameworks to better visualize how to go about these processes. Along with Markus Nauser, he edited the "Human Ecology: fragments of anti-fragmentary views of the world." *Gregory Bateson, generally known as a British anthropologist, contributed to human ecology in the realm of the ecology of mind. He was opposed to the way scientists try to reduce everything to matter; his goal was to re-introduce the mind into the equation. He emphasized the importance of looking at the world not just though reductionist logic, but to understand the connections in the "pattern which connects" all of our minds through stories.Batson, G. 1978. The Pattern Which Connects. In Coevolution Quarterly. pp. 5-15. *Stephen Vickers Boyden contributed to human ecology while at the Australia National University working on a comprehensive study of Hong Kong's unique human ecological situation. This study was the basis for UNESCO's Man in the Biosphere Program. Biohistory: The Interplay Between Human Society and the Biosphere generated the Hong Kong Human Ecology Programme (http://www.science.org.au/scientists/sb.htm#8). *Bonnie McKay is a professor and chair of the department of human ecology at Rutgers University. *Gary Haq is a Human Ecologist and Senior Research Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York and often writes for the Yorkshire Post. Concepts Many human ecological concepts come from ecology. *Perhaps the most fundamental concept of human ecology is interaction, as an assumption that everything interacts with other things and a basis for all further analysis. Interaction is a function of scale, but should be extended to be a function of diversity and complexity. *Levels of integration is the concept that entities are organized on levels of different scale for better analysis, for example from the level of the molecule, the individual, the family, the community, the population, the biosphere, or the universe.Young, G.L. 1974. Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry. Advances in Ecological Research. 8, 1-105. *Human ecology expands functionalism from ecology to the human mind. People's perception of a complex world is a function of their ability to be able to comprehend beyond the immediate, both in time and in space. This concept manifested in the popular slogan promoting sustainability: "think global, act local." Moreover, people's conception of community stems from not only their physical location but their mental and emotional connections and varies from "community as place, community as way of life, or community of collective action."Young, G.L. 1974. Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry. Advances in Ecological Research. 8, 1-105. *Diversity and stability are contentious topics in ecology; current research shows that ecosystems are less stable than originally thought and high diversity does not immediately translate into high stability.Drury. 1998. Chance and Change. College of the Atlantic Internal Publication. These have not often been applied to human ecology. *Systems analysis is one way to understand human ecology, however many topics are more complex and it is important to realize that systems analysis is only one way to understand them and fairly simplified. Most systems are not closed and therefore require simplification in order to study them. *Spatial analysis is essential to human ecology because many of the problems of relations between humans and their environments are physical. *A gestalt perspective or holistic viewpoint is important to human ecology because it recognizes that we can gain understanding of a system by looking at it as a whole. *Monodisciplinary: Studies focusing on one specific area. Most institutions of higher learning award degrees based on monodisciplinary majors intended to prepare students for work in a specific discipline. *Multidisciplinary: A variety of subjects studied concurrently. A liberal arts degree requires students to study a variety of subjects in order to prepare them to be effective citizens in a complex society. *Interdisciplinary: Integration between disciplines. A human ecological education integrates ideas from different disciplines in order to better addressing complex problems dealing with human/environment (whether social, physical, or mental) interactions. *Transdisciplinary: A perspective that transcends disciplines. A human ecological education goes beyond integrating different disciplines, creating a worldview that assumes an inherent connectivity when better addressing problems relating to human/environment interactions, but still relying on solid disciplinary foundation. Educational Programs Colleges and universities around the world offer classes, programs and degrees in human ecology. Listed below are a sample of these institutions and the programs they offer. *The Australian National University's Fenner School of Environment and Society takes an interdisciplinary perspective in their education and research—integrating skills and expertise from different disciplines to address issues of sustainability and the environment. The ANU offers a major in Human Ecology. *A Masters of Human Ecology degree is awarded at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels Belgium. Here students learn about different interdisciplinary research approaches and gain skills in conducting their own interdisciplinary research. Emphasis is also placed on the scientific methods of studying human /environments interactions. *College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine USA, was founded in 1969 by academics who recognized that a new way of thinking was needed in order to solve world problems, a way of thinking that is beyond disciplines. All students at College of the Atlantic receive a degree in Human Ecology – tying their varied interests into their self-designed field of study. The school is not organized by departments and instead sees the study of human ecology as a way to connect disciplines and engage all kinds of knowledge in order to inform action. *Cornell University in Ithaca, New York USA, has a College of Human Ecology where students focus their study around social topics or themes such as Design and Technology, Development and the Life Course, and Economic and Social Well-Being. The College creates interdisciplinary fields of study by incorporating the social and natural sciences into these topics. Through the integration of these fields, the College hopes to “advance and improve the human condition.” *Lund University in Sweden offers a Masters Program in Human Ecology in which students focus on the issues of sustainability while exploring the different cultural, economic, environmental, and social perceptions and dimensions involved. *Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in New Brunswick New Jersey USA, has a Department of Human Ecology, where professors from diverse disciplines in both the natural and social sciences study the relationship of humans to environmental problems and work to address them. *Ambedkar University, Delhi's School of Human Ecology offers a Masters Program in Environment and Development to equip students to address the challenges related to the environment as it centrally impacts approach towards development. *The University of California at Davis in the United States, has a graduate group in Ecology which offers a "program of emphasis" in Environmental Policy and Human Ecology. In this program students explore the interactions between humans and their environment, what the present conflicts are, and how to address them. They also look at human populations and behavior through a research lens—applying ecology principles to their study. *University College London's Human Ecology Research Group uses research in history, anthropology, GIS, and the environmental sciences while taking a multidisciplinary approach in their research on the social impacts of environmental degradation. *The University of Geneva Human Ecology Group brings economics and social sciences into their environmental science studies. *University of Gothenburg in Sweden has one of the first interdisciplinary PhD human ecology programs in the world. *The University of South Africa (UNISA) possess a department of human ecology focused on community agriculture. *University of Tokyo's Department of Human Ecology studies the environment's effect on human health and populations and in turn human's effect on the environment. *The Wild Rockies Field Institute fosters students' understanding of the complex relationships between ecological processes and human behavior through multidisciplinary, experiential field courses. Human Ecology Organizations *The Society for Human Ecology (SHE) is an international society focused on applying and promoting ecological perspectives to research and education. Members come from all over the world and from varied interdisciplinary professions. In their biannual journal, Human Ecology Review, SHE publishes research, commentary, and reviews relevant to Human Ecology. SHE holds regular conferences, workshops, and symposia and they work with other organizations to sponsor related activities that seek to "integrate work among professionals in fields pertaining to human ecology." *The Centre for Human Ecology in Scotland offers challenging, interdisciplinary courses in social justice and environmental action. As an institute, it works as a network to address global issues and help organizations become more sustainable. By exploring social and environmental issues through a more holistic perspective, CHE hopes to bring about a better world. *The Commonwealth Human Ecology Council (CHEC) is a humanitarian organization that encourages local, national, and international application of human and social ecological principles. As an international organization it works with governments, the private sector, and the public and it is an "operational force in the Commonwealth and United Nation's spheres of influence." *The German Society of Human Ecology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanökologie) was founded in 1975 in Reisensburg near Günzburg, Germany. In its early years, DGH was influenced primarily by social medicine. Later the society expanded to include other sciences and policy related. Today it is a forum which brings together experts from all fields of environmental sciences, teachers, doctors, engineers, and administrators to discuss ideas and learn from each. Since 1989 the DGH has held its annual scientific meetings on interdisciplinary themes. Journals *Advances in Human Ecology *Human Ecology *Human Ecology Review *Journal of Human Ecology Recent Trends While theoretical discussions continue, research published in Ecology Review suggests that recent discourse has shifted toward applying principles of human ecology. Some of these applications focus instead on addressing problems that cross disciplinary boundaries or transcend those boundaries altogether. Scholarship has increasingly tended away from Young's idea of a "unified theory" of human ecological knowledge—that human ecology may emerge as its own discipline—and more toward the pluralism best espoused by Shepard: that human ecology is healthiest when "running out in all directions."Shepard, Paul. 1967. What ever happened to human ecology? In Bioscience 891-894. But human ecology is neither anti-discipline nor anti-theory, rather it is the ongoing attempt to formulate, synthesize, and apply theory to bridge the widening schism between man and nature. This new human ecology emphasizes complexity over reductionism, focuses on changes over stable states, and expands ecological concepts beyond plants and animals to include people. There is wide agreement that human ecology seeks to integrate diverse perspectives.Borden, R.J. and J. Jacobs. 1989. International Directory of Human Ecologists. Bar Harbor, ME: Society for Human Ecology. The growing popularity of liberal arts colleges have increased understanding and recognition of an interdisciplinary college education in the United States and thus human ecology—but mostly in academic circles. Paul Sears was an early proponent of applying human ecology. He saw the vast “explosion” of problems humans were creating for the environment and reminded us that “what is important is the work to be done rather than the label."Sears, P. 1954. Human Ecology: A problem in Synthesis. In Science, New Series 120 (3128) pp.959-963. In applied fields In the applied fields of engineering, environmental planning, architecture, and landscape architecture, human ecology has continued to gain more currency. Proponents of the new urbanism movement, like James Howard Kunstler and Andres Duany, have embraced the term human ecology as way to describe the problem of—and prescribe the solutions for—the landscapes and lifestyles of an automobile oriented society. Duany has called the human ecology movement to be "the agenda for the years ahead."In Kunstler, J.H. 1994. The Geography of Nowhere. New York:Touchstone. pp.260 While McHargian planning is still widely respected, the landscape urbanism movement seeks a new understanding between human and environment relations. Among these theorists is Frederich Steiner, who published Human Ecology: Following Nature's Lead in 2002 which focuses on the relationships among landscape, culture, and planning. The work highlights the beauty of scientific inquiry by revealing those purely human dimensions which underlie our concepts of ecology. While Steiner discusses specific ecological settings, such as cityscapes and waterscapes, and the relationships between socio-cultural and environmental regions, he also takes a diverse approach to ecology----considering even the unique synthesis between ecology and political geography. Deiter Steiner's 2003 Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary view of the world is an important expose of recent trends in human ecology. Part literature review, the book is divided into four sections: "human ecology", "the implicit and the explicit", "structuration", and "the regional dimension".Steiner, D. and M. Nauser (eds.). 1993. Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary Views of the World. London and New York: Routledge. Human Ecology Forum 108 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2008 Much of the work stresses the need for transciplinarity, antidualism, and wholeness of perspective. In art While some of the early writers considered how art fit into a human ecology, it was Sears who posed the idea that in the long run human ecology will in fact look more like art. Bill Carpenter (1986) calls human ecology the "possibility of an aesthetic science," renewing dialogue about how art fits into a human ecological perspective. According to Carpenter, human ecology as an aesthetic science counters the disciplinary fragmentation of knowledge by examining human consciousness.Carpenter, B. 1986. Human Ecology: The Possablilty of an Aesthetic Science. Paper presented at the Society for Human Ecology conference. In education While the reputation of human ecology in institutions of higher learning is growing, there is no evidence of human ecology at the primary and secondary education levels. Educational theorist Sir Ken Robinson has called for the need to diversify education so as to promote creativity in academic and non-academic (i.e.- educate their “whole being”) activities to constitute a “new conception of human ecology.”Robinson, K. 2006. TED Talk, http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html Further reading *Barrows, H.H. 1923. Geography as Human Ecology. Association of American Geographers Annual. 13:1-14. *Batson, G. 1978. The Pattern Which Connects. In Coevolution Quarterly. pp. 5–15. *Bernis, C. and M. Sandin. 1987. Prospecting Human Ecology. Madrid: Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. *Bews, J.W. 1935. Human Ecology. London: Oxford University Press. *Borden, R.J. 1984. Directory of Human Ecologists. College Park, MD:Society for Human Ecology. *Borden, R.J., J. Jacobs and G.L. Young (eds.). 1985. Human Ecology: A Gathering of Perspectives. College Park, MD: Society for Human Ecology. *Borden, R.J., J. Jacobs and G.L. Young (eds.). 1988. Human Ecology: Research and Applications. College Park, MD: Society for Human Ecology. *Borden, R.J. and J. Jacobs. 1989. International Directory of Human Ecologists. Bar Harbor, ME: Society for Human Ecology. *Boulding, K.E. 1950. An Ecological Introduction. In A Reconstruction of Economics, Wiley, New York. pp. 3–17. *Boulding, K.E. 1966. Economics and Ecology. In Nature Environments of North America, F.F. Darling and J.P. Milton, eds, Doubleday New York. pp. 225–231. *Bressler, J.B. 1966. Human Ecology. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. *Brown, M. 1993. Home economics as human ecology. In M. Brown, Philosophical Studies of Home Economics in the United States: Basic Ideas by which Home Economists Understand Themselves, 275-359. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. *Carpenter, B. 1986. Human Ecology: The Possibility of an Aesthetic Science. Paper presented at the Society for Human Ecology conference. *Cohen, J. 1995. How Many People Can the Earth Support? New York: Norton and Co. *Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. London:Murray *Daysh, Z., M. Carley, E. Ekehorn, K. Phillips-Howard, and R. Waller(eds.). 1991. Human Ecology, Environmental Education and Sustainable Development: Report on the Ninth Commonwealth Conference on Development and Human Ecology. London: Commonwealth Human Ecology Council. *Eisenberg, E. 1998. The Ecology of Eden. New York: Knopf. *Ekehorn, E. 1992. International directory of organizations in human ecology. Humanekologi 11, 4, 5-16. (Also in Human Ecology Bulletin 1992, 8, 51-71) *Glaeser, B. (ed.). 1989. Humanökologie. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag. *Gross, M. 2004. "Human Geography and Ecological Sociology: The Unfolding of a Human Ecology, 1890 to 1930 – and Beyond," Social Science History 28(4): 575-605. *Grossman, E. 2006. High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. *Gudynas, E. and R. Xalambri (eds.). 1992. Actas del Primero Congreso Latino Americano de Ecologia. Montevideo, Uruguay: CIPFE. *Haeckel, E. 1866. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Berlin: G.Reimer. *Hansson, L.O. and B. Jungen (eds.). 1992. Human Responsibility and Global Change. Göteborg, Sweden: University of Göteborg. *Hens, L., R.J. Borden, S. Suzuki and G. Caravello (eds.). 1998. Research in Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Overview. Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Press. Hubendick, B. 1985. Människoekologi. Malmö, Sweden: Gidlunds. *Huib, E. (ed.). 1994. Pathways to Human Ecology: From Observations to Commitment. Bern, Switzerland: P. Lang. *Knight, C.B. 1965. Basic Concepts of Ecology. New York: MacMillan. *Machado, P.A. 1985. Ecologia Humana. São Paulo, Brazil: Cortez. *McHarg, I. 1981. Ecological Planning at Pennsylvania. In Landscape Planning 8(2):109-120 *McKenzie, R.D. 1926. The Scope of Human Ecology. 20th Annual Meeting, 1925, Paper and Proceedings, vol. 20, American Sociological Society, Washington D.C., pp. 141–154 *Marten, G.G. 2001. Human Ecology: Basic Concepts for Sustainable Development. Sterling, VA: Earthscan. *McDonnell, M.J. and S.T. Pickett. 1993. Humans as Components of Ecosystems: The Ecology of Subtle Human Effects and Populated Areas. New York: Springer-Verlag. *Miller, J.R., R.M. Lerner, L.B. Schiamberg and P.M. Anderson. 2003. Encyclopedia of Human Ecology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. *Nathawat, G.S., Z. Daysh and G.J. Unnithan (eds.). 1985. Human Ecology: An Indian Perspective. Jaipur, India: Indian Human Ecology Council. *Orr, D.W. 1992. Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. *Ostrom, E., T. Dietz, N. Dolsak, P.C. Stern, S. Stonich, and E.U. Weber(eds.). 2002. The Drama of the Commons. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. *Polunin, N. and J.H. Burnett. 1990. Maintenance of the Biosphere. (Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Environmental Future — ICEF). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. *Pratt, J., G.L. Young and J. Jacobs. 1990. Human Ecology: Steps to the Future. Sonoma, CA: Society for Human Ecology. *Preiser, W.F.E. 1986. A letter from the president. Human Ecology Bulletin 3, 1-4. *Quinn, J.A. 1950. Human Ecology. New York: Prentice-Hall. *Ridley, M. and B.S. Low. 1993. Can Selfishness Save the Environment? The Atlantic Monthly, 272, 3, 76-86. *Sargent, F. (ed.). 1974. Human Ecology. New York: American Elsevier. *Sears, P. 1954. Human Ecology: A problem in Synthesis. In Science, New Series 120 (3128) pp. 959–963. *Shepard, P. 1967. What ever happened to human ecology? Bioscience 891-894. *Siniarska, A. and F. Dickinson. 1996. Annotated Bibliography in Human Ecology. Delhi, India: Kamla-Raj Enterprises. *Sontag, M.S., S.D. Wright, G.L. Young and M. Grace. 1991. Human Ecology: Strategies for the Future. Ft. Collins, CO: Society for Human Ecology. *Steiner, D. and M. Nauser (eds.). 1993. Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary Views of the World. London and New York: Routledge. Human Ecology Forum 108 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2008 *Susanne, C., L. Hens and D. Devuyst (eds.). 1989. Integration of Environmental Education into General University Teaching in Europe. Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Press. *Suzuki, S., R.J. Borden and L. Hens (eds.). 1991. Human Ecology — Coming of Age: An International Overview. Brussels, Belgium: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) Press. *Suzuki, T. and R. Otsuka. 1987. Human Ecology of Health and Survival in Asia and the South Pacific. Tokyo, Japan: University of Tokyo Press. *Tengstrom, E. 1985. Human Ecology — A New Discipline?: A Short Tentative Description of the Institutional and Intellectual History of Human Ecology. Göteborg, Sweden: Humanekologiska Skrifter. *Theodorson, G.A. 1961. Studies in Human Ecology. Evanston, IL: Row,Peterson and Co. *Vance, M.A. 1987. Human Ecology: Monographs Published in the 1980s. Monticello, IL: Vance Bibliographies. *Wang, R. 1990. Human Ecology in China. Beijing, China: China Science and Technology Press. *Wells, H.G. 1934. Experiment in Autobiography. Toronto: Macmillan. *Whitehead, A.N. 1951. The philosopher’s summary. In P.A. Schilpp (ed.),The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. New York: Tudor. *Wright, S.D., T. Dietz, R. Borden, G. Young and G. Guaguano (eds.). 1993. Human Ecology: Crossing Boundaries. Ft Collins, CO: Society for Human Ecology. *Wright, S.D., R. Borden, M. Bubolz, L. Hens, J. Taylor and T. Webler. 1995. Human Ecology: Progress Through Integrative Perspectives. Fort Collins, CO: Society for Human Ecology. *Young, G.L. 1974. Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry. Advances in Ecological Research. 8, 1-105. *Young, G.L. 1978. Human Ecology as an Interdisciplinary Domain: An Epistemological Bibliography. Monticello, IL: Vance. *Young, G.L. (ed.). 1989. Origins of Human Ecology. Stroudsburg, PA: Hutchinson Ross. See also *Environmental communication *Ecology, espc. Ecology#Human ecology *Environmental Psychology *Ecological Systems Theory *Family and Consumer Science *Human behavioral ecology *Sociobiology *Social Ecology *Spome *Rural sociology *Environmental sociology *Urie Bronfenbrenner *Ernest Burgess *John Paul Goode *Robert E. Park *Louis Wirth *Collaborative intelligence References External links *The Australian National University's Fenner School of Environment and Society *Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels) *College of the Atlantic *Cornell University College of Human Ecology *Lund University's Human Ecology Division *Rutgers University's Department of Human Ecology *University of California at Davis' Graduate Group in Ecology *University College London's Human Ecology Research Group *University of Gothenburg's Department of Human Ecology *Society for Human Ecology *Centre for Human Ecology *Commonwealth Human Ecology Council *Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanökologie (German Society for Human Ecology) *Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal *Human Ecology Review * *Home Economics Archive: Tradition, Research, History (HEARTH) Category:Ecology by taxon Category:Social psychology Category:Environment Category:Environmental social science Category:Branches of sociology (interdisciplinary) Category:Geography Category:Human geography da:Humanøkologi de:Humanökologie el:Ανθρωποοικολογία es:Ecología humana fr:Écologie humaine pl:Ekologia człowieka pt:Ecologia humana ru:Экология человека sk:Ekológia človeka sv:Humanekologi zh:人类生态学